October 4, 2007

American as an Armchair Pedophile

Let’s get these kiddie-ticklers. Let’s lock up these freaks who get off to images of our children licking lollipops. That’s right, throw that candy bar on a string out onto the sidewalk you perv, we’ll snatch it up, we’ll hold your greasy hand on the walk back to your van as long as we’re sucking on a Twix, then right when you’re ready, right when you’re frothing with pedophilic fantasy we’ll whip out our camera and shove it down your throat. Some all-American anchor in a snazzy blazer will come out and castrate you, metaphorically of course, with a pearly smile on his face and the firepower of an entire police force at his back. Brace yourself—this is going to hurt.

The fact that this scene plays out regularly on NBC’s To Catch A Predator—a show where NBC lures perverts into a sting operation where they are heroically arrested after a dramatic exchange with host Chris Hanson—proves that our media are dripping with pedophilic saturation. Turn on Fox News at any time of the day, and you’re likely to see a story or two about a child molester in Florida who got out of jail early, a kidnapper in West Virginia who finally got caught a month after violating a nice white seven year old or a deranged survivalist in Vegas who made a video of himself molesting a three year old. Then you’ll see the obligatory spokesman for some Christian coalition who will satisfy Sean Hannity’s pedophile fix by making the profound statement that child molestation is indeed bad. In the process of all this moral pedophile denouncing, something strange happens—we get a detailed account of the pedophilic action. On the channel that’s only a few clicks away from Spongebob, we get to hear about old men fingering young girls. Is this necessary? Is the American public unaware that pedophilia is wrong?

I’m going to go ahead and assume that America knows that child molestation is bad. So why detail these rapes? The media don’t report on molestations of adults or teenagers—why give every sickening detail of the molestations of little kids?

Sex sells but not as much as kiddie sex. The media are a moneymaking enterprise whose sustenance is dependent on attractive stories that draw in viewers and bolster advertising sales. Therefore if a story is neither newsworthy nor informative it must be a story intended to attract the audience that will make the media outlet money. The media give us play by plays of child molestations for business purposes. America is a colossal, jagged wasteland of fat, closeted perverts disguised as a Jesus-loving, land of capitalist good ol’ boys, and the media exploit it. They know America’s a closeted freak, so they offer programming that is moral on the surface to feed our superficial nature but contains an underlying perversion to satisfy our inner porn-addict.

Dateline NBC’s insanely popular series To Catch A Predator, for example, is child porn under the guise of social cleansing. What’s the money shot of To Catch a Predator? It’s not when they catch the predator. What sends the audience into collective orgasm, what the majority of the show builds up to, is the dramatic reading of the cybersex conversation between the predator and the “little girl.” If this show were really about catching predators, it would just catch the pervert and lock him up and feel good about itself. But this isn’t a show based in morality; it’s a show based in pedophilia. The bait and catch is a construct through which we can listen to conversations about fellatio-giving kids and not feel bad about it. We need to hear the conversation. We need to hear the stone faced anchor say the words, “You said, in an instant message, ‘I want to lick you’re tiny little fingers.’ Is that not true?” Does this have anything to do with catching the predator? No. But this isn’t a show about catching predators; it’s a show about making the viewer imagine a sweaty bald man in a wife-beater licking the delicate milky fingers of a twelve year old. Now who is the pedophile?

Related

In an era where speaking out against the excesses of affirmative action can generate accusations of racism and one too many things can be blamed on whites, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s only African-American, provides a fresh perspective on racial issues. Although he certainly has faced the evils of racism growing up, Thomas took a different path, questioning the value of affirmative action and refusing to think like your stereotypical black. In return, his nomination to the Supreme Court was almost derailed by allegations of sexual harassment in what Thomas refers to as a “high-tech lynching,” and over his career, many blacks (and whites) who have clamored for diversity have at the same time lambasted Thomas for setting diversity back and disgracing his own race.

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